What does it all cost? In dollars, to Penn
faculty,
not much -- we are quite fortunate. We still need more classrooms with
equipment that lets us use these resources, but I have taught
with Mosaic in a very ordinary classroom in the Towne building,
thanks to a little wheeled cart with a computer and a
surprisingly powerful projector. The Provost's Classroom
Committee is hard at work guiding plans for more e-classrooms all
the time; some of their work is already visible in the new Jaffe
building and in last year's triumph, Williams 103-5. The ResNet
program will put good network connections in dorms in the very
near future, and let our students access these things 24 hours a
day with high quality connections. Just in the last year, the
atmosphere has changed dramatically, and the new Penn
administration is committed to moving forward. (As for machines:
it's an odd fact that for the last ten years or so, a machine
that keeps you comfortably equipped for today and the next
several years usually sells for between $2,000 [conservatively
configured]to $4,000 [ambitiously configured to do the fanciest
things at the edge of the technology curve]. Some schools at
Penn now replace faculty machines every five years with a new one
costing about $3,000: this is a good compromise. Our real
problem at Penn is with adequate network connections for all
faculty and with adequate machines of any kind for all staff.
The best way to assure that such facilities become a priority is
to use what we have aggressively, show better teaching, research,
and collegiality arising from that work, and then make a case for
more hardware.
Go on to see what
it's like in practice teaching this way or go back to the start of
this guide to new tools for teaching. (And where
will I find the time?)